Sony's Woman Problem

I for one am psyched to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (which I will be seeing later today.) But not all women are excited according to a piece last week in Vulture. Sony seems to be nervous that the film is not tracking well among women, which is one of the reasons why they are opening it up a day early because they need to build word of mouth. And remember that this is an R rated movies so the young teenage boys are not the target

I for one am psyched to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (which I will be seeing later today.) But not all women are excited according to a piece last week in Vulture. Sony seems to be nervous that the film is not tracking well among women, which is one of the reasons why they are opening it up a day early because they need to build word of mouth. And remember that this is an R rated movies so the young teenage boys are not the target

The reason why they are nervous is because of the graphic subject matter of the book as well as the ads which are clearly dark and cutting edge. The tag line is the "feel bad" movie of Christmas. Doesn't give you a lot of cheer during the holiday season. I think women can handle cutting edge ads, but if you are targeting women and want them to see the film, especially women who really liked the book because those are the ones who will start your much needed word of mouth, you need to get them in the theatre and not piss them off.

Word of mouth is something you need badly when you have a film where you want women. Women talk. Women listen to each other and women's recommendations because we are busy which goes double for this time of year. So if a friend liked something that goes a long way. Women go to see movies when they hear that they are good or if there is a movement to attend like there was this year with Bridesmaids. But The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about as far away you can get from Bridesmaids and still say they are in the same universe.

They marketers made a major mistake with the first poster that depicted Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander with her breast exposed being held around the upper torso by a fully clothed Daniel Craig as Michael Blomkvist. I wrote about that poster when it came out in this piece, The Pornification of Lisbeth Salander. That poster got people going. There were more comments on that piece than anything else I have written. Ever.

Champions of the book think that the boob poster was a huge mistake and is not in context with the character. I guess we shouldn't be surprised because David Fincher, one of the most successful and interesting directors around, is in charge and let's remember that he is not known for making very pro-women films.

So I was curious and conducted a very unscientific poll of Facebook and Twitter and got some responses which showed that people who read the books and loved them will be going but those who couldn't deal with the violence of the books are not interested in the film. People who hated the boob poster and loved the book will still be seeing the film. People who were turned off by the boob poster and who could care less about the book, probably won't be going.

The whole thing is complicated by the fact that one big theme of the movie is violence against women. [SPOILER] The savage rape of a beloved character. There are many women -- those who have experienced violence and those who haven't -- who won't go see a film that depicts violence against women no matter how powerful the female character turns out to be. I'm sure they will be getting lots of guys into the film with all the dark ads and the trailers but we will see whether that will be enough. We all know that for an R rated film you need to get the women in the door in order for you to have a chance at a success.